The Biggest Upset in American Political History

November 14, 2016

Donald Trump is the elected 45th President of the United States. The surprising triumph for Trump, a 70 year-old real estate developer – turned reality television star with no government experience proved that everything the 2016 political class thought it knew was wrong. The polls were wrong. Projection models were wrong. Previous presidential campaigns’ analytics were wrong. American voters put Republicans into power in a voters’ wave no one saw coming. Trump’s defeat over Hillary Clinton questioned years of political wisdom on campaign operations, America’s demographics, and how a controversial nominee can simply affect the ballot. As recently as weeks ago, the majority of political analysts and polls favored Clinton to be the president elect. Trump’s upset victories in critical swing states – Florida, North Carolina, and Wisconsin – where almost every poll and projection had Clinton ahead – provokes the head scratching question, how did almost no one – not the pundits, not the pollsters, not the media – see it coming? As we begin to dissect how America voted, http://college.usatoday.com/2016/11/09/how-we-voted-by-age-education-race-and-sexual-orientation/, it’s absolute Trump pulled off one of the most staggering upsets in the history of the Western democracy. Political professionals and more will now spend the upcoming weeks studying and question how and why we all missed it.

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